An intimate exchange
by The Croc Shop
Summary: AndrAIa wants to know what this thing called "kissing" is. Enzo does his best to explain.


Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I claim to own any characters or concepts related to _ReBoot._ This is a nonprofit work of fanfiction.

This story is set after "AndrAIa," but before the events of "Nullzilla."

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**An intimate exchange**

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"Enzo!" AndrAIa hissed.

She touched his shoulder, her fingernails ghosting across his back. He shivered and hunched his shoulders, but the warmth of her touch remained, trickling through his skin.

"Look and see!" she said. "What are they doing?"

Like he wanted to do his stupid Ancient Languages homework anyway. Enzo turned his face up to the vid window and _Captain Nebularis and the Net Raiders_.

Lit dramatically in delicate shades of red and paler pink, Captain Nebularis held Madam LOLary tightly in his slender arms, his face pressed to her own. Madam LOLary made several noises which Enzo guessed were supposed to mean she was happy, but mostly she just sounded like she really had to go to the bathroom.

"Is he feeding her?" AndrAIa asked.

"What? No!" he said, recoiling from the precisely rendered thought of Nebularis dribbling energy shake into Madam LOLary's mouth from his own, barf-o-rama. He shuddered and wriggled his fingers, overcome. "That's disgusting!"

She frowned, her lips puckering. "But they are touching mouths."

"That's just kissing," he told her. "They're not feeding each other anything."

Feeding each other, she'd said. With their mouths, and tongues probably. Mega gross. He didn't even want to imagine why AndrAIa would think something like that. Maybe it was a fish thing. A creepy, super nasty fish thing.

"I see," AndrAIa said slowly. "They are 'kissing.'"

On the screen, Madam LOLary reached for Captain Nebularis, her rounded chest heaving. "Darling!" she cried. "Why do you kiss me so? Why do you kiss me as though you despise me? Kiss me as if you love me!"

AndrAIa frowned again.

"Enzo," she said. "What is 'kissing'?"

"_You_ know," he said.

AndrAIa tipped her head to the side, her eyelashes flashing neon green against her cheeks. The puckering of her mouth deepened.

Enzo's heart thrummed suddenly; the feel of it resounded through his chest.

"Oh," he said. "You don't know."

"I do not," AndrAIa confirmed. She looked to the screen, where Madam LOLary had fitted herself to Captain Nebularis, her hand cradling his jaw as she sighed into his mouth.

"Why does she kiss him?" said AndrAIa. "Does she want something?" Her face lit up. "Is it a trick? I bet she is poisoning him. They were shouting at each other earlier. They shouted a _lot_. Captain Nebularis said words Dot does not like." AndrAIa scowled at the vid screen.

"It's not a trick," Enzo said. "I mean, I guess it could be, 'cause it's Madam LOLary and she totally wants to erase Captain Nebularis..." He shook his head, clearing it out. "But that's not what kissing's supposed to be," he told her. He knew _that_ at least.

"Then what is it supposed to be?"

"Something grown-ups do," he said. Enzo tried to look worldly. "But they only do it when they really, really like each other."

AndrAIa considered this. "Like Bob and Dot," she said.

"I wish," Enzo sighed. Then maybe Bob would move in and he could be like Enzo's real brother, and they could all eat breakfast together before Dot had to open the diner, and he'd let Enzo and AndrAIa watch scary vids with him, and Dot would laugh, like, all the time.

Madam LOLary sighed, breathless, and clung to Nebularis.

"This kissing," said AndrAIa. "It's pleasurable?"

"I don't know." Enzo shrugged. "I guess. People do it all the time. So yeah, probably."

AndrAIa nodded thoughtfully, absorbing this, then shot a look at Enzo through her lashes, her eyes hidden.

"So this kissing is something grown-ups do," she said. "But do you _have_ to be a grown-up to kiss someone? Is it okay if you are little, but you really, really like someone?"

"Um," said Enzo.

AndrAIa smiled at him and his gut twisted into a knot. Under the flickering light of the vid window, her freckles flashed like small and darkened constellations, spattered high upon her cheeks.

Enzo felt kind of queasy, like he'd eaten too much candy all at once or like he'd gone Circuit Racing three times in a row without stopping. Like he wanted to watch a new show real bad but Dot wouldn't let him 'cause he still had homework to do, and all he could think about was how much he wanted to watch that stupid show.

"Enzo?" said AndrAIa.

"Ask Dot," he said instinctively. "Dot knows everything."

"Then I will ask Dot," she said. AndrAIa smiled again, her nose wrinkling cutely. Cutely? Enzo shrank away.

Blindly, he looked to his homework, the readme file blinking up at him. COBOL? FORTRAN. He couldn't remember. It was stupid, anyway, like he was ever going to use ALGOL. He bet Bob didn't have to know this stuff. Enzo's chest ached.

"My dear Madam LOLary," cried Captain Nebularis. "How I have longed to hold you in my arms! All those sleepless nights I processed..."

"But we are together now!" said Madam LOLary. "Now, you can hold me. Now, you can kiss me!"

Enzo scowled up at the vid. "C'mon, let's watch something else," he said. "This is boring."

"I do not think it is so boring now," AndrAIa protested. "Now that I know what kissing is." Her eyes crinkled as she smiled. "Thank you, Enzo."

"Uh," he said. His heart ran whizbang through his chest. "You're welcome."

AndrAIa turned once more to the vid. She hummed a little song beneath her breath, a strange, pleased song he did not know, full of low notes and odd pauses. Her shell earrings dangled, catching the light and swallowing it, now reflecting it back at him.

Enzo stared at his homework and waited for it to make sense.

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This story was originally posted at livejournal on 10/17/2009. My apologies for spamming the hell out of the frontpage. (Yikes. I did not realize this category was so inactive! Mortification is seeing four of your stories stacked one on top of the other.)


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